


Escape

by silveryink



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e03 Theft, Gen, HDM Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mentions of Injuries, Spoilers for HDM season 2, hdm said lee backstory rights and i said lemme break it down even more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27700016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveryink/pseuds/silveryink
Summary: Lee makes his escape from the Magisterium outpost.
Relationships: Lee Scoresby & Hester
Comments: 20
Kudos: 57





	Escape

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a heavy, **heavy** blend of book and TV canon - it doesn't spoil anything after this episode in particular, but it does contain a fair amount of foreshadowing and backstory from the books. So this warning is a 'just-in-case' deal, so that you can skip any spoilers that may have unintentionally crept up in the fic.
> 
>  **TW:** mild blood/gore, aftermath of torture, references to child abuse, referenced past minor character deaths, passing mention of alcoholism and gambling

The motorboat was rickety, splintering, and its motor barely worked, but it was all the Lee could find unattended on the docks. Had he been, well, _better_ , he’d have tried to find something else that would have served him better, but he didn’t want to push himself and test his limits right now – not when his nerves were frayed, when his revolver was devoid of bullets, and when he was injured worse than most of his other fights combined. _Escape_ was the only thing on his mind, and he’d be damned if he couldn’t make do with some random boat that was half breaking apart.

He wished he could retrieve his balloon, but like he’d said to Hester when they’d slipped into the dockyard, it simply wasn’t the best idea in the world to carry out right now. He wouldn’t last a minute in a fight like this. It wasn’t worth risking his freedom, even if the idea of _seafaring_ was so foreign to him as flying would be to gyptians.

“Hop in,” he said gruffly, laying out his outer coat for her to sit on lest her feet get splinters in them – they’d made that mistake before, and in the time it had taken for the little cuts to heal, Lee had gone half-mad with irritation at the pins-and-needles sensation whenever either of them had even taken a step forward.

Hester didn’t argue, but she did project some disapproval when he abandoned the motor and directly reached for the oars.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea now?”

“I think I can experiment with a faulty system _after_ we’re out of immediate reach of the Magisterium,” Lee snapped. Hester didn’t berate him for it, conserving her energy for his sake as he started to row.

“Could use some bloodmoss,” he muttered, once they’d headed a ways down the Yenisei River. Or was it up? Lee didn’t care about navigation, but he hoped that the blind feeling he was following would lead him _closer_ to Grumman and not away from the man. He didn’t think he’d have the energy to reverse his direction and row all the way back up – or down – the river with all the injuries he was aggravating in his hasty escape. “D’you think we could find some of it this far up?”

“Maybe. I’ve only heard of it further North, though.”

“That sounds about right,” he said, resignedly. He carefully tucked the oars away into the side of the boat and let the current slowly float them past a few villages in the cover of darkness, finally letting his arms rest a little.

“You should try to get some sleep,” Hester said. “It’ll be hard, but you have to try.”

“I don’t think I can,” he admitted. “Not after…”

He didn’t have to say it, and Hester knew without words exactly what he meant. He didn’t fight her when she encouraged him to take a break once they reached a particularly dense section of terrain and rest for a while. He did haul the boat all the way up to a bush and stuck it in the undergrowth to conceal it, and simply flopped back onto the ground once he was satisfied. God, he was _exhausted_. For all that he’d told Mrs. Coulter about how good he was at handling pain – which wasn’t a _lie_ , he would have kept all of Lyra’s secrets to the end – he’d grown used to the comfort of his balloon. It was true that he got into fights, but this was more than a few bruises and scrapes, or even a single broken bone – he hadn’t felt the likes of this since he’d been fourteen, and he’d almost forgotten how _lousy_ it could be. Not to mention all the memories that everything brought up…

“I guess I probably should have talked to someone else about it before, huh?” Lee asked quietly after a long, companionable silence. “It might not have been this bad if I’d–”

“There’s no telling how it would have affected you, even if you’d told someone,” Hester rebuked gently. “Some people can work through their traumas quickly, others need a whole lifetime to heal.”

“I thought I was better about it, anyway. Thought I’d worked through the worst of it. All those thoughts…”

“We did,” Hester cries. “We did, Lee, you may not remember this, but you were so _sad_ when you were leaving Texas and there was nothing I could do to help, but we met Iorek and Serafina Pekkala and those other witches, and _Lyra_ , and you were already trying to get better after you left. Everyone else helped, just like how you help them around.”

Lee cracked a small smile. The farmers he’d helped around had also let him take care of their horses every so often. He’d loved that job a lot more than when he’d had to guard their warehouses. It was boring work, but it had been honest and rewarding, at least until McConville had ruined everything in town. Young Jimmy Partlett’s murder had been a catalyst for a _lot_ of ill will among the folks in his hometown, and if he hadn’t left, Lee would have been suffocated by the place.

He did miss Texas, but leaving it had been healing.

“It did, didn’t it?”

“ _Yes_. You didn’t freak out about the memories, Lee, but you’ve been burying it for so long even though you worked through everything – it was _bound_ to hurt eventually.”

“If you go on with some stupid metaphors, Hester,” he started, but Hester was quick to shut him down.

“Shut up,” she ordered, and Lee obeyed. “And we did heal, Lee. I’m not a bit surprised that you’re overwhelmed after telling Coulter about all of the abuse after leaving it be for so long.”

A metaphor right there might have worked better, but Lee understood what she meant. Logically, he knew that the overflow of emotion was from all the day’s stress, and pain, and fear about what was to happen to Lyra if he couldn’t help her after all – but _logic_ wasn’t really permeating his brain right now, and Hester always helped with that when it became an issue, when he got a little stuck in his head.

He knew that most people didn’t nearly talk as much to their daemons as he did to Hester – but back when he’d still been grieving his mother’s death, talking with Hester had been one of the few things to keep him sane. The habit had continued long into adulthood and didn’t seem likely to stop for the rest of his lifetime. It helped that his life as an aeronaut was mostly solitary, since that meant they got to talk as much as they wanted – or needed – without judgmental stares from others who thought they lacked decorum. And, hell, Hester was a good conversationalist. Even if it wasn’t particularly eventful, he liked talking with her.

Daemon etiquette, in his opinion, was mighty stupid – instead of communicating with a living, breathing part of their souls, people chose to make fussy rules about _manners_ in public.

“I didn’t tell her all of it,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t expecting to think about it today, that’s all. And it’s been so long, I never thought it’d become relevant.”

“But it’s always _been_ relevant,” Hester said bluntly, and Lee flinched. “Not like that – what he did hurt us for _years_ , but it made us the way we are now. You took one look at all of what had happened to you and decided never to be that person to someone else. It’s why we were drawn to Lyra, isn’t it? That’s why we love her. She wants to help too, even if she’s not sure what to do. It’s why we don’t want to stop her from doing whatever she likes, or has to, but we want to make sure she’s safe doing it.”

Lee was reminded of the way she’d held on to the little boy she’d brought back to camp with Iorek, the severed Billy Costa. He also thought of how she’d been sympathetic towards the other intercised children without pitying them, and how damn compassionate she could be. He wouldn’t want to help another girl; he knew for certain in that moment. He also knew that what he’d told Mrs. Coulter in the Magisterium cell had been truer than what the alethiometer could tell Lyra – he’d do anything for the kid, and if that meant laying his life on the line, _so be it_.

“If we survive this,” Lee said a little breathlessly, “I’m going to adopt her. That little girl has had horrible luck by way of parents, and I want to step in. Break that cycle, guide her through life. Do what Mother would have done for us, if she hadn’t…”

Lee’s mother had died of illness the summer before he’d turned seventeen, a result of physical and mental stress from all the jobs she’d worked to make sure that Lee’s father wouldn’t gamble away their possessions every night, that they had enough to get by, even when their savings had been next to none after being spent entirely on alcohol and games of chance. Lee wasn’t against a game of cards, they could be quite fun, but he knew the importance of exercising restraint – whenever he’d joined in on games around pubs and taverns in towns he’d stopped at, he made sure to leave before the game was over with what little he’d honestly made, right when his luck started to turn up lest they accused him of cheating.

Anyway – Lee’s father had disappeared when he’d been around Lyra’s age, and after two days of searching to no avail, when it became clear that the man had finally upped and _gone_ , out of their lives, Lee had only one thought – _good riddance_.

The odd jobs around the neighbours’ ranches that he’d taken proved to be helpful as he took over managing his own family’s farm, and his mother finally got to catch a break for a year or so before succumbing to illness. He’d mourned her, obviously, and mourned the fact that she never truly got to raise him except in snatches and stolen moments, that he’d had to do most of the growing up himself when his father hadn’t been around.

“She would have,” Hester agreed mournfully. “I wish she’d been better, sometimes. But it’s happened, and we’re here. And – you’re right. We should adopt her, if that’s what she wants.”

“Yeah,” Lee murmured, feeling every inch of the beatings he’d taken that day down to his bones and sinking limply into the ground. What little energy he’d had left for conversation faded away, leaving behind the most exhaustion he’d felt since the, ah, _incident_ , at Novy Odense. Being beaten obviously wasn’t the same as being shot, but moving _hurt_ , even if it was as small as twitching a finger. A single night’s rest wouldn’t be a bit of help, but at least – hopefully – he wouldn’t be quite so sore the next night when he had to haul the boat back into the river.

He wasn’t going to get a lick of sleep anyway, so he decided to change the topic. He was vaguely aware that his voice was growing fainter and fainter as he spoke, but Hester could read him well and would understand exactly what he meant, so he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Hester, do you think what she said about the prophecy is true?”

Hester hummed softly. “It’s hard to say. She seemed pretty genuine – that monkey was a little jittery, but not nearly as much as when she was interrogating us. But she could have heard the wrong thing from the wrong person, so…”

“Serafina Pekkala did say that she had some big part to play in what was coming,” Lee observed, his eyes slipping shut of their own accord.

“I remember.”

“I don’t want to send her into something dangerous like this, where she might not know what’s coming. That alethiometer seems like it only tells the truth about whatever someone asks of it, not something of this scale.”

“She should be able to choose,” Hester agreed. “But maybe not knowing helps. We don’t know if _our_ fate is sealed, and we’re just ambling around, doing what needs to be done, helping people out when we cross their way. We get to choose what to do, even if it means we reach the same outcome that was always meant for us.”

Lee hummed. “Do you think our fate is pre-determined?”

“I don’t know, Lee,” she answered honestly. “I don’t think I want to.”

Lee got it, truly. It wasn’t just that Hester knew him and that he knew her, that was only a part of it. If the universe had a miserable ending planned for him, he wouldn’t be able to bear knowing it beforehand. And wouldn’t knowing that he’d have a happy life and ending ahead of him take away from the joy of it? Not knowing _was_ better, he agreed.

“She’s going to be in the thick of all the action,” Lee slurred. “Isn’t she?”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Then we have to get her that weapon. What did that Magisterium guy say it was?”

“I don’t remember,” she said, a little guiltily. If Lee had had the strength to move, he would have flicked her ears a little for it.

“Doesn’t matter, anyway,” he muttered. “If Grumman won’t help, none of it will matter.”

“We’ll _make_ him help,” she replied, but both of them knew that that wasn’t on the cards. If Grumman declined the opportunity to help, Lee would leave and track down Lyra himself. “But, Lee, you still need to find a doctor, or someone to help you with your injuries.”

“Grumman’s not supposed to be that far off,” Lee said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find medical help in his village.

By then, the sunlight had slowly creeped over between the leaves of the tree that Lee lay under, and he squinted up at the sky. Hester wasn’t wrong about those injuries. Any of them could get infected from all the exposure to the elements without treatment, and his prospects weren’t looking too good considering he was lying right on the ground and making no effort to move.

At sunset, Lee roused himself out of a half-daze and slowly hauled the boat down to the river, stumbling in and lifting Hester inside. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and he was sorer than ever, but he knew that he had to keep moving.

This time, he tried the motor.

**Author's Note:**

> Lee's backstory is kind of touched upon in TSK and OUaTitN, but I've been thinking about his childhood in Texas for a while before s2 started airing, and wasn't expecting Lee's dad to be mentioned. In the books, Lee mentions his mother fleetingly, particularly with regard to her ring (which, spoilers, we see at the start of this episode). Given that the Lee & Marisa scene never happened in the books, it was kind of shoehorned into the timeline, which in TSK was already a bit vague with the shifting narration.
> 
> I guess the purpose of this fic is to bridge that timeline in the book and the show, which is always an interesting endeavour.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed it! My tumblr is atexanaeronaut for anyone who'd like to chat about HDM!


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